Cafetiere Brewing Guide

How to make cafetiere coffee

There are loads of brilliant coffee makers out there (we sell a few of them) but the trusty cafetiere is a favourite in the UK.

The principle is simple. Add coffee, pour in hot water and plunge right?

Well yes, sort of....

You see there are ways you can tweak the brewing method to make your coffee taste heaps better. 

I've researched lots of different methods and have found my favourite. It comes from leading coffee expert James Hoffman. 

Here is how he recommends brewing in a cafetiere:

1. How much coffee? Forget scoops and spoons - weigh your coffee using kitchen scales. For a cafetiere use a ratio of 75g of coffee per litre of water. Think of it like baking or cooking: measuring your ingredients = consistency. 

2. Use coarse ground coffee - like sea salt. Because we are immersing the coffee in water we want a smaller surface area. This achieves a slow gentle extraction. Too fine and you'll extract stuff in the coffee that we don't want and it will taste bitter.

3. Warm the cafetiere first. Boil the kettle and swirl some hot water around the cafetiere to warm it up. Add your coffee and then slowly pour in the water (just off the boil). Keep the cafetiere on your scales so you can measure how much water goes in. Make sure all the grinds get wet. 

4. Leave for 3-4 mins

5. Break the crust. After 3-4 mins take a spoon and break the crust that will have formed on the surface. No need to stir. Scoop out any remaining lumps and clumps of foam. The coffee grinds will now gently fall to the bottom.

6. Leave for a further 3-4 mins. This is key. At the end of this time most of the coffee will have dropped to the bottom.

7. Slowly plunge